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Post by teabag on Apr 10, 2014 21:21:42 GMT
Maybe I'm missing something?? Why do people insist on mixing all sorts of different feeds from different manufacturers? Thet are not compatible!!! They will never offer a balanced diet unless they are from the same manufacturer! And less is more btw... Please remember that horses have evolved to live off a predominantly fibre based diet. Cereal is not a natural diet for the horse! My mare is like the duracel bunny and is fed a forage based diet! Try stripping your horse's diet down to the basics - you may be pleasantly surprised
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Post by gillwales on Apr 11, 2014 4:51:58 GMT
what is wrong with feeding straights? You know what they are getting then, far better value for money
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sarahp
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Post by sarahp on Apr 11, 2014 6:20:52 GMT
The only point I have to add teabag is that the main part of the diet is the forage part, which unless you have analysed and area ble to work round, is basically an unknown quantity. Sam Barr used to make his own haylage in its early days, then have it analysed and a specific hard ration made up accordingly.
I do so agree though about products being added apparently at random though. A diet should be considered as a whole, and you should know why you are feeding each component and what it provides. I think a lot of this is down to the huge range of different products available from many different feed companies, all with their own enormous PR machines at work.
Personally, I have native ponies and I'm a huge fan of balancers, right from their very early days as they do make sure that all the boxes for essential micronutrients are ticked, but even those are now available in a huge range of different formulations. I don't feed cereals either, or molasses, and have turned lately to fibre feeds and linseed rather than manufactured compound feeds.
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Post by sjw87 on Apr 11, 2014 6:49:47 GMT
I sell feed for a living and have the same ethos as sarahp.
I hate how some feeds are advertised and it's scary how little a lot of people know about what they are feeding. Also scary how many people will swap and change because 'my mate said...'.
It does make me chuckle though as I read threads on here about wheatfeed and people slating it. The same people then recommend baileys no. 4 (of which wheatfeed is one of the main ingredients) and topspec cool condition cubes (where wheatfeed is the main ingredient). These feeds do have the calcium in required when feeding wheatfeed but you could do that yourself with limestone flour.
Dengie have the right idea with 'fibre first' but imo they have made their range far too complex hi fi, hi fi lite, hi fi apple, hi fi good doer, hi fi molasses free and that's before you get to the alfa a's and complete feeds. As much as alfalfa is a good source of protein, I hate how it is in everything now - the only way to avoid it if you need to is a grass chop, just chop or a molassed chop.
I'm not old but was privileged to work on dressage yards where straights were fed and there was always barley and linseed boiling away. So few people now actually want to understand what they are feeding and why so just follow what the bag says to the detriment of the horse.
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sarahp
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Post by sarahp on Apr 11, 2014 10:28:55 GMT
I'm old enough to remember the boss of the riding school we went to mixing a big heap of chaff, bran and oats on the floor with a shovel, and then differing amounts of the mixture fed to everything on the yard! The chaff was hay cut up with a chaff cutter. Next after that, we had ponies kept with an old retired stud groom from a big family - he still remembered the family moving up to the London house for the season complete with horses to hack in Rotten Row, and he used to break them to side saddle for the ladies of the house to hack and hunt as no lady then ever rode astride - who always had the barley and linseed boiling away on the stove, and gosh it smelled!
I'm always telling people to read the white labels sewn in to the feed bag seams for the actual ingredients, but I often wonder if I'm talking to a brick wall.
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Post by fanfarefan on Apr 11, 2014 12:12:36 GMT
I too remember the old boiler simmering away at the hunt yard ! And the head girl fed nothing but straights , oats, barley , maize , bran and the linseed and her saying was Feed for the work theyve done , not for the work they might do ,which i found over the years to hold a lot of sense .we now with the cushings/Ems and minis in the yard feed unmoloassed chaff , balancer, outshine for one and a handful of bran , works for us !!!!!
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Post by lilliella1 on Apr 11, 2014 12:56:40 GMT
I have this year for the first time gone on to straights. I feed these with Alfa oil and speedi beet and my show ponies look amazing. We had a horse nutritionist asses all of our ponies and she was the one who recommended changing. Within these I use a pure wheat feed too with limestone flour.with all the sugar now added to mixes and nuts it is not surprising some horses go off of their heads. Since feeding this way for the last 8 months even our very hot 148 show pony is calm and collected.
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Post by mady on Apr 12, 2014 8:56:30 GMT
I remember picking all the lose hay up from the floor and putting it the chopper!
We used to use bran, barley, oats & sugar beet.
There was no balancers or top notch mixes etc.. Well not that I can remember and horses always did well
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Post by brt on Apr 12, 2014 9:02:32 GMT
I'm always telling people to read the white labels sewn in to the feed bag seams for the actual ingredients, but I often wonder if I'm talking to a brick wall. I agree with everything that has been said on this thread, but wanted to point out that some people read the white label and don't actually understand what the percentages mean or what their horse or pony actually need ! I did a small survey on a livery yard a few years back and was surprised how many people fed a bagged "complete diet " due to thinking that if it says it has everything then it must be fine for all ans sundry. a simple nutrition course would benefit a lot of people as some don't want to ask and look a fool.......
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sarahp
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Post by sarahp on Apr 12, 2014 13:39:48 GMT
That makes a lot of sense brt. But surely if there are people out there who do not understand % something has gone very wrong with our education system. I would worry more about understanding what some of the terms used for feedstuffs means, some odd and misleading ones are used, but this is only a short post on a forum, not a lecture on nutrition and at least I put them on the first step of the road. Or try to!
I haven't looked, but are there not simple nutrition courses available on the internet? I'm a book person, and there are plenty of those, and articles in the horsey press. What about pamphlets from the welfare societies or the BHS? But that does rely on those reading the labels wanting to learn and understand. The main cuplrit is too wide a choice of compound feeds with too much PR blurb about them!
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Post by Chiff-chaff on Apr 12, 2014 13:51:52 GMT
There is a serious business opportunity for someone to manufacture/import safe, modern chaff cutters at a reasonable price.
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Post by honeypot on Apr 12, 2014 14:42:42 GMT
I love the fact that a lot of high fibre feeds and chaff are based on straw, whether it be chopped or pelleted. Its a bit like shampoo, there are only a few basic tried and tested ingredients and then you add the magic of advertising and packaging and you convert a very cheap substance into something that costs £7 a litre. I do feed a mix, but basically I look at the ingredients and feed the cheapest no matter what the bag colour. The packaging has all the pretty pictures to encourage mainly women to buy them. With farm feeds there used to be little choice as farmers fed on results and price, but now with hobby farmers they have started producing expensive brands at almost a third more expensive than normal stuff.
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Post by fanfarefan on Apr 12, 2014 18:33:16 GMT
20/25 yrs ago my old mare was retaining a huge amount of fluids and was generally unwell , i had a hair sample test done and it came back that she was intolerant to sugar of all kinds and ths is when we had to scrutenise every label of everything we fed , within days the fluid reduced and she was a happier horse ,every feed seed to have molassed added the key ingrediemt to get horses to eat up ..How things have chamged ,,,,,,, a new concept everything is now molasses free !!!!!!! Feed a natural fibre diet evertime
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sarahp
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Post by sarahp on Apr 12, 2014 19:41:24 GMT
Many straw based chaffs are molassed, which horses could do without.
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Post by fanfarefan on Apr 12, 2014 20:04:24 GMT
Absolutely ,we always go for molasses free everthing !!!!but also watch for molglo the sugar dirivative of soya, the new way to get round molasses free , but still sugar
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Post by mady on Apr 12, 2014 21:37:12 GMT
I agree I have got all mine on Alfa A oil, a balancer and If any weight needed top spec cubes. We have foals to ridden horses and are all blooming!
I remember boiling barley my mum used to go mad!
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Post by shelliewilson on Apr 12, 2014 23:49:07 GMT
Lucie stalks (molassess free simple systems) a handful of balancer and oil to add condition when needed = voila! No more no less its not needed and ponies look amazing!
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Post by thatboythatgirl on Apr 13, 2014 8:13:03 GMT
Only fed a slow release energy mix once it led to my horse tying up which led to three vet visits in a week for injections havnt fed one since! I always read the little white labe as need to keep his starch/sugar levels as low as possibele
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Post by sjw87 on Apr 13, 2014 9:20:21 GMT
Also remember that lucerne is another name for alfalfa. So lucie nuts and alfalfa pellets for example are the same thing.
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sarahp
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Post by sarahp on Apr 13, 2014 10:41:49 GMT
Back to reading the white labels again! There is a finite list of possible ingredients and none are restricted to one company.
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Post by sbloom on Apr 14, 2014 13:00:06 GMT
I am always surprised that people still think they should feed low protein to avoid fizziness, and haven't heard that it is all a myth resulting from protein and not starch/sugar being detailed on the bag. It just so happened that most high protein feeds were also high in starch/sugar, no-one realised it wasn't the protein causing the issue, but it is talked about all the time now.
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sarahp
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Post by sarahp on Apr 14, 2014 14:20:09 GMT
I am no longer surprised, just exasperated!
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Post by hs on Apr 17, 2014 21:17:04 GMT
I am not surprised really, if you look at what most people eat very people eat a balanced diet or know about the nutritional values of human food so it is hardly surprising that they don't have a good understanding of equine nutrition and are looking for the horse equivalent of a ready meal be it economy or the taste the difference version!
I have however used supplements or feeds recommended by friends that have been great so recommendations can be good. The most effective marketing is word of mouth so even if feed companies spend a lot of money on marketing people if it is not suitable people may buy the product once and then never buy it again and not recommend it.
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darme
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Post by darme on May 13, 2014 16:25:45 GMT
From what I'm reading high protein is high sugar , I feed high oil soyabean meal to to my youngster now i,m worried he's having a lot of sugar , which i'm trying to avoid can anyone inform me is it right or wrong
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Post by nici on May 13, 2014 22:00:14 GMT
No, high protein doesn't mean high sugar, however some high protein compound feeds have in the past also been high in sugar and starch, which do cause fizziness, and this perpetuates the myth that it is protein responsible for the fizziness, not the sugar / starch.
I don't know what's in the particular feed you give your youngster but the white label sewn into the bag has to tell you exactly what is in it. High oil is good for energy and condition without causing fizziness, and is safe for building condition in laminitics - provided it's not used to pile on too much condition of course. Protein is essential in feeds for building muscle, and is good for most horses & ponies - although is not suitable for horses/ponies with compromised liver function.
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